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Yates into top 10 after Queen stage of Giro d'Italia

British climber Adam Yates has clawed his way into the top ten after finishing in ninth place on the Queen stage of the Giro d'Italia today.

The 22-year-old finished in a small group, one-minute and 35seconds down on Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Mérida) who won the stage ahead of Mikel Landa (Team Sky).

“Today was another solid day from Adam,” said ORICA-SCOTT sport director Matthew White. “We are back inside the top ten and the signs are good for Adam. He is really showing his consistency.”

“Today’s climbs were perhaps not the perfect type of climbs for him to be too aggressive but there is still a lot of climbing to go. The next three stages finish uphill.”

Yates now sits seven minutes behind the pink jersey of Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb), who lost time today, and two-minutes 25seconds off the white best young rider’s jersey held by Bob Jungels (Quickstep).

“Today wasn’t an overly aggressive day,” White explained. “The climbs were long but the pace wasn’t explosive enough to drop the bigger, stronger time trial guys. We will keep trying”

How it happened:

Despite the mammoth task ahead, the pace was on at the start of the Queen stage from Rovetta.

It wasn’t until the first climb of the day, the Mortirolo, that the first break went away and when it did, it was a larger group of over 20 riders. Spaniard Carlos Verona bridged across shortly after to represent ORICA-SCOTT.

As they hit the famous Stelvio climb for the first time the breakaway had around two-minutes advantage but it started to split. Verona returned to the pack as Mikel Landa (Team Sky) reached the ‘Cima Copi’ first and went on to lead the race with Andrey Amador (Movistar) on the decent.

Yates remained comfortable in the main contenders group and heading into the last climb the team sent Ruben Plaza to the front of the favourites group to reduce the gap before he was subsequently left behind once the road started to climb again.

With the gap under two minutes an attack on the final ascent of the Stelvio saw Nibali, Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R La Mondiale) and Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) launch towards the remnants of the early breakaway.

Using his supreme skills on the descent, Nibali caught Landa, who was the final surviving breakaway member, and the duo battled the entire way to the line.

Behind Yates stayed in a group containing Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) and Jungels to finish ninth on the stage and improve his overall position.